


Five Things Near Wouldn't Admit To Under Torture

by Harukami



Category: Death Note
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-02
Updated: 2005-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-05 18:15:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/409479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some Near/Mello, some Near --> L, some Near --> Kira, ranges from no spoilers (early ones) to spoilers up through chapter 77 in the last yes I know I'm a h0r for spoilers for really recent stuff (chapter released yesterday whut). Safe for work (but some violence)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things Near Wouldn't Admit To Under Torture

  
1.

In the way kids have of having a one-track mind at the best of times, there are bets circulating the orphanage that Mello dances like an angel. It's that time of age, really, where the girls and the boys both think of romance in terms of fleeting touches, heated excitement, music and dancing and other unnecessary things.

Romance, Near has always thought, is something that involves more chemistry and biology than anything else. But perhaps there's something to it, anyway; you can't fight brain chemistry, so it might as well be just something to accept.

Mello gets the attention from the girls, really, in a way Near never does; Mello's always out and about and playing with the other kids while Near keeps himself apart, but Mello's almost as brilliant as Near himself, far and away _better_ than them; he's an idol they can touch. And he's always been a pretty boy -- mistaken for a little girl by more than one arrival -- and showing signs now of maturing into a startlingly attractive man.

Or he would, Near thinks, if he stopped contorting his face all the time, squinting and staring, baring his teeth, wrinkling his nose, wide, almost pantomimed expressions to show the world.

But Near's feelings on the matter aren't those of others, and maybe Mello controls his face differently when he's just around them, and that's why they think he's so handsome. Near can't be sure. But they clearly think so, and Near, sitting in the hall and working on puzzles, has overheard the girls whispering that they'd like to dance with him, and then, giggled out because it's a shameful thing to say, that maybe Mello's dancing would be like liquid sex.

(Liquid sex is a stupid term, Near thinks; none of these young women have had sex, but to all accounts it is a messy, poorly-coordinated business that's frequently uncomfortable and frequently animalistic and potentially quite painful, but with enough pleasure included to sweeten the biological demands. To imagine it as liquid movements is a romantic viewpoint. besides, Mello would probably be a horrible lover; he's urgent and angry and selfish, after all.)

Of course, they don't know, but Mello's dancing is nothing at all like they imagine (just as sex with him would most likely not be, but Near will not think about that). They share a room, after all, and sometimes Mello will attempt to bother him by putting music on, loud and fast and hard. If Near ignores it -- and he generally chooses to ignore Mello's aggressions -- Mello will sometimes dance. Near thinks that it is possibly another attempt to harass him, but, more likely, Mello has simply forgotten Near and forgotten himself.

Mello dances like jerky stop-motion footage, awkward gangly limbs being thrust about, head swinging with hair following to slash at his face on the backswing, bare feet stomping the ground with the ragged cuffs of his pants swaying around his ankles.

Near is the only one who's seen him like this, and he will never say that he always watches.

 

***

2.

Sometimes, and Near would never let anyone know this, Near finds himself jealous of L.

From what rare accounts they get of it, things were easier for L. He was a genius to begin with, was recognized, given resources, took to work. Monitored the news, monitored big cases, took whatever interested him. He never needed anything. He never wanted for anything.

His successors aren't so lucky. Whammy started up many orphanages, ran tests, and found the smartest children to transfer to the Whammy House in Winchester.

And from there they are pitted against each other in tests, constantly competing to be the best because, well. They have no legal identities any more, just single-word code names. Most of them don't remember their real name. Near doesn't, but he wonders, sometimes, how deeply hidden in his memory it must be. At age fifteen, they will be forced to leave and exit into the world; most will be set up with starting jobs, but they are still illegal people.

In the meantime, there's nothing but the competition. Near does the best, he knows, not because he's the smartest one there -- he is, but there are others who could best him with willpower and effort and so on if that were the only thing. It is because he refuses to sabotage himself by caring about the other people in the orphanage. He keeps himself separate because attachments would destroy him -- if he is competing with people rather than code names, he runs the risk of wanting not to hurt them, not to crush them, not to destroy their hopes.

They all only have one hope, to be L, and only one person can succeed in that, after all.

This is why he can't help but view Mello with scorn; Mello's always in the thick of things, getting involved, feeling for everyone around him despite the fact that Mello is the only person with the intelligence to possibly defeat Near. Mello cuts himself apart with the people he's with, brings about his own downfall, cares too much that Near is better.

Near thinks he must be a person to Mello in a way he has carefully tried to avoid being to _anyone_ ; Near thinks Mello can't help but know him. It makes Mello slower. It makes their competition have less meaning than it began with.

And it was already very low in meaning; if L doesn't pick a successor before they turn fifteen, they'll be thrust out and away, harder to keep track of and be chosen, and new children will be brought in who Near can't compete with well because he can't observe them once they're gone. Their entire lives revolve around something that they know -- through the logic that has been drilled into them! -- is unlikely to ever occur to them. All Near can do is try his hardest, and watch others trying their hardest, and watch Mello flounder about and fail to do his hardest, and know that it gives them a chance, nothing more.

And sometimes, he resents L just a little for it, but that doesn't stop the desperate longing.

 

***

3.

When Near is sixteen, he commits murder.

It's not anything too important, and that's the irony of the situation. There's an information leak that has to be dealt with. Near and the agent -- agent Jansen -- are alone in a room and Jansen's got a gun and has it pointed at him and is taunting him. _Yes, you know I was the leak. You have to let me go. I'll go and disappear into this world. And then--_

And Near puts down his godzilla toy, picks up his own gun from the inside of his dollhouse, and shoots, just like that.

It's not self-defense. It can be justified as self-defense because there was a gun pointed at him, but Near was annoyed. He's been working this long to get this information, and Jensen believes it's that easy to get away with it? It's a stupid thing. And he's not attached to Jensen any more than he's attached to Ratt or Hal or any of the others; they're a means to an end, hardly people to him.

And he knows Jensen. Jensen is petty and a poorly-moralled man who would gladly make off with the fruits of Near's labour, but he would not be able to bring himself to commit murder. The gun isn't even pointed directly at Near.

Squeezing the trigger is easy, looking down at the body after is easy, calling the rest of the SPK in to witness the self-defense and take the body away is incredibly, mind-bogglingly easy.

There's a little thrill that fills him after, when he is alone and he realizes this makes him a criminal. And he intends to stay that way; he will not confess to his murder, or turn himself in, because that would go against his goal. He is a criminal.

But first and foremost, before he is a criminal he is an investigator. His goal is to catch Kira, after all, and although he knows Kira will never know Near is a criminal -- he is far too good to get caught, after all -- he thinks, deep down inside, that somehow this must sweeten the deal.

He understands now what it's all about, after all.

 

***

4.

Kira is always on Near's mind.

Near has never thought of himself as having a particularly heated temperament; he was always the cold one, after all. Ice-hard, difficult to shatter, hurting to the touch.

But he wants vengeance, and he wants it badly, and though he is willing to take as much time as he needs, he wants vengeance now.

He imagines it, late at night, seated in bed with his plush toys around him. He imagines taking this tool from Kira, finding Kira's identity, watching his face as he writes his name in. L must be avenged. L is something necessary, and because of Kira's actions -- and because L had never chosen a successor but that's not the point any more -- there is no more L in this world.

Sometimes he will roll a pencil between his fingers and imagine what it would feel like to write Kira's name in, this false, second L.

He wonders what Kira saw when L died. He wonders how it must have felt. He wonders.

These are passions that would frighten him if he had the type of personality that allowed him to get frightened. Instead, he contemplates them from a careful distance.

Mello, he thinks, is probably also looking for vengeance; if Near is, Mello must be, because Mello has a much more vengeful, hotter personality than Near's own. He wonders if Mello lies awake and thinks about it, mouth around a chocolate bar. He wonders if Mello knows, deep down, that Near will, as always, win again. This might excite Mello. Near doesn't have the type of personality to get excited, but the thought is interesting.

This isn't a question of right or wrong, not any more.

This is a question of win or lose, and Near knows the boundaries of that field very, very well.

 _I'll catch you, Kira_ , Near thinks, and uses his pencil to decapitate a toy soldier.

 

***

5.

Near has, after all, become excited.

 _This_ is how things should be, he thinks, and stares at his toys so he doesn't have to turn, see Mello's leather-clad legs as he moves away, his tattered jacket swaying at his ass. He caught sight of Mello once already on the video screen and does not intend to take another look; he runs the risk of viewing Mello as a stranger, because Mello has changed much more than Near has. He's no longer soft-edged, a young pretty boy, but a hard-edged, lean young man who's dressed out like he wants to hit the entire world with his aggression and the bare swath of his belly and the cross weighing down his neck and so on. The scar on his face is fresh and jagged and deforming but doesn't mar him; it only highlights what he has become, and does so in a way that makes him seem like a new person.

But Near has exchanged words with Mello and he knows that Mello is the same person as he always has been, angry but hopeful, thrusting humanity on Near and wanting to believe it. He knows Mello inside and out. This Mello, he thinks, would dance in angry, stop-motion footage. This Mello probably even still dances. This Mello wants vengeance and this Mello wants to defeat Near, but not so badly as to dehumanize him.

This Mello accepts information and gives information back.

This Mello is the Mello Near can compete with.

It's everything, really. Competition, win-lose, Mello and Near and a goal, and vengeance, the two of them hot and cold, fast and slow, perfect rhythm double movement. Mello knows things Near doesn't know. Near knows things Mello doesn't.

It's exciting and Near's smiling; he can feel it on his face as he hears the rap-rap-rap of Mello's boots as Mello walks away -- not bare feet any longer and thus a false illusion to hide the real Mello, and so Near will pay it no mind. This is the world he knows. He wonders if Mello is also smiling, or if he is resentful, or if the two are the same thing for Mello.

But he thinks Mello must know. 'Dear Mello', he'd written on the back of Mello's old photograph. He hadn't written _You left this, and I remembered you by it_ or _here is your death in my hands; take it back_ or _Something of yours to give back_ or _I watched you then_. Just 'Dear Mello' and see what conclusion Mello drew, see whether Mello realized how _unnecessary_ it was; he hadn't _had_ to give it back. He thinks Mello must have; Mello gave him something back that Mello hadn't been required to, after all.

They know this game.

It's good to be home, Near thinks, and smiles as the sound of Mello fades.  



End file.
